


Mooning Over You

by Go0se



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Anxious Gerard Way, Coffee, Fortune Telling, Gen, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Mikey Way has connections, No Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Ouija Boards, Punk Frank Iero, Witch Gerard Way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 01:48:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5145770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Go0se/pseuds/Go0se
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A smudge of blood reached across the young man's lip from what looked like a fresh ring piercing planted right at the corner. It stretched a little when he smiled. “I’d like to learn my future,” he said.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mooning Over You

**Author's Note:**

> From a bandom_meme prompt of "Frank/Gerard ouija boards"! Things I Made While I Probably Should've Been Planning My NaNo Story And Then Wrote When I Definitely Should've Been Writing My NaNo, the life the blog.  
> Please tell me if you find anything mispelled/missing/out of place. Happy always Halloween. <3
> 
> \-------

The first time the young human man showed up on Gerard's doorstep he was like any other patron, mostly. A smudge of blood reached across his lip from what looked like a fresh ring piercing planted right at the corner. It stretched a little when he smiled. “I’d like to learn my future,” he said.  
Gerard spent a second processing this before he nodded. He stepped back from the doorway, holding the thin drape back with one hand and welcoming the visitor inside.  
The young man didn’t whistle to himself as he walked over the threshold but it seemed like a near thing. The door swung shut behind him. He squinted around the darkened front hallway, turning on his heel. “This is atmospheric as shit, isn’t it? Oh, I’m Frank.”    
“Gerard,” Gerard replied. He dropped the drape back in front of the doorway. “I don’t shake hands before a reading, sorry. Would you like to try cards, palmistry or runes today?”  
Frank met Gerard’s eyes and shrugged. “Whatever you think would work best, I’m not really versed in this or anything.”  
“New blood,” Gerard said, nodding, then froze. _Right,_ he remembered too late. _That was creepy._ Especially to a human; G wasn’t a vampire so blood had no interest to him (unless it was an entrails reading, which he hated doing), but humans could be skittish and superstitious when frightened.  
But no, it was fine—Frank was laughing, digging his hands into his waist to hold himself up. “Okay, I definitely picked the right place,” he said between recovering breaths. “Yeah, yeah, new blood.”  
“Sorry,” Gerard replied, forcing himself to relax a little. He could absolutely stay self-conscious in front of someone who was laughing at what he _said_ instead of at _him,_ but he didn’t want to make extra work for himself _._ If he had doubts while doing a reading the energy would manifest all wrong. “Uh, this way. Please.”

 

*

  
The second time  Frank came to Gerard, it was for help. “You have crystals, right? Healing ones?” He asked thickly after a cursory hello when Gerard answered the door.  
“If you’re ill you need to see a medical doctor,” Gerard warned. He could tell there wasn’t any _if_ about it. The moon was heavy under the horizon, so Gerard could smell Frank’s sickness clinging to him; weirdly organic, like phlegm and candlewax, layered over with the heavy overripe potassium scent of antibiotics. “I can’t do anything that will work immediately. There’s a free clinic around the corner that’s open right now if you need a place.“  
He’d still stepped aside to let Frank in, of course. Frank was wearing what looked like two hoodies on top of a thin sweater and still shivering. The newly November air was freezing. It would be at best rude and at worse, like, actively negligent to keep someone outside on an evening like this.  
A sharp breeze swept into the building around Frank’s feet as he hurried in. He rubbed his ruddy nose with a redder hand, then tucked his fingers into the hem of his hoodie again. “I know it won’t be super fast. I don’t need the clinic-- I’m already on antibiotics, man, I just could use a little extra luck. My band and I are heading on tour soon, I need to be over this shit by then.” He sniffed heavily.  
“You need to be wearing a hat. Or on bedrest, seriously,” Gerard scolded. He managed to stop before he went into full-on _where do you live so I can show up and feed you soup_ mode. It was an easy mode for him to fall into, especially when someone was cute. It was also entirely unprofessional. He stepped around Frank to get to the end table the appointment book was laying on, scribbling Frank’s name and the time with the black fountain pen.  
“Hmmmm can’t do that, sorry,” Frank said. When Gerard turned around he continued, “Too much non-bed and non-rest things to do.” He grinned a little.  
A Frank grin was an entirely different creature than a Frank smile, Gerard noticed. He decided to file that away to deal with later. Then he rubbed his forehead and sighed, mostly for show. “The crystals are over by the window in the second room. It’ll take about twenty minutes.”  
Frank’s grin eased and bloomed into a full smile. “ _Thank_ you. You’re a live-saver, honestly.”  
His sincerity was a warm glow in Gerard’s heart that stays for the rest of the day.

  
*

  
“Is it okay if I come here so often?” Frank asked a couple of weeks later. He’d arrived that morning for the third time in as many months, now with a curiousity for tarot cards. “Like it won’t, I don’t know. Affect anything? Mess up the vibes?” He tapped the deck in front of him on the table.  
  
The two of them were sitting in the kitchen of Gerard’s grandmother’s house, which now doubled as plant supplement room. Its yellow walls were a lot brighter than the rest of the house, palette-wise. It was also brighter literally since most of the plants needed sunlight to grow. Dried grasses and flowers sat waiting in clear glass jars on the open shelves along the left-hand wall, while fresh ones languished in flower pots by the window over the sink. Anything but wolfsbane, obviously, and cattails because they made Gerard sneeze. The counter underneath the microwave was covered with colour-coded mortars full of crushed herbs. Some of the mixes weren’t strictly work-related, they just looked nice and tasted good if added to ice cream. Gerard liked to think of the kitchen as a kind of art space. Herb work was immensely creative; it was one of the parts of this trade that he liked best.  (His brother still made a point to tend to the live plants when he came over to visit, as Gerard was notoriously terrible at it, which he would “remind” Gerard of every single time without fail.)  
Five kinds of tea stood in little metal racks attached to the wall above the stove.  The coffee pot, meanwhile, was carefully sequestered on the table so as not to accidentally mix anything that shouldn’t be ingested.  
  
The smell of brewing coffee on top of everything else could get a little overwhelming. Gerard had taken to opening the window to let some fresh air in whenever he got up. He’d closed it after leading Frank in to the kitchen and asking him to sit down, though. (It was just easier to use the kitchen at this point in the work day.)  
Frank had mentioned he liked coffee, so Gerard had went around making a second pot while Frank had chosen from an array of tarot decks to study from.  
   
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Gerard replied now to Frank’s question. He picked one of the mugs that had a little cartoon zombie on it and then shut the cupboard door carefully.  
Frank thanked him politely as he took the offered mug. Gerard nodded, glancing at the cards on the table. (The deck Frank had picked was one of Gerard’s favourites. It didn’t get much use in readings because of all the blood.) Frank had rested his hand on the two of cups.  
Gerard smiled a little, sitting back down across the table.  “The house is for everyone,” he explained. “It doesn’t matter how much or few times you’re here, as long as you find your peace.” He reached for his own mug and took a drink. A second too late he realized that it was an old painting mug he’d accidentally left out. Putting it down carefully, he added, “If you feel really bad about it I could interest you in a self-help tape?”  
The front hall featured a small bookcase full of labelled self-therapy cassettes for sale. Frank laughed. “No thanks. Is it, uh. Is it okay with _you_ if I come here so often?”  
“Oh! Yeah,” Gerard said, blinking. He’d taken the painting mug and hidden it under the table while Frank was chuckling, so he straightened up as nonchalantly as he could. “Of course. I’m here to help.”  
Frank nodded. “I’m glad,” he said.  
There was silence between them for a second, except for the faint electrical hum and wind whistling outside. Then Frank cleared his throat. He looked back down at the deck and tapped the two of cups. “So, what does this one mean?”  
“Well the interpretations vary,” Gerard said. He drank some actual coffee and then leaned forward. “It’s based on personal use as much as anything else. Cups generally symbolize…”

  
*

  
The fourth, fifth, and ninth times that Frank and Gerard meet happen outside Gerard’s work. They run into each other at local shows Gerard’s brother had invited him out too as an alternative to horror movie night. Frank had a band; Mikey had connections; Gerard had a couple evenings to fill. It was an accident the first time. A pleasant one, though.  
The shows themselves were mostly in bars. One was at a small record label’s house party which might as well have been at a bar. Mikey watched out for Gerard when he asked him too, which Gerard appreciated. It’d been a while since he got sober but not quite long enough for him to be comfortable alone around so much booze. (Mikey didn’t get too fucked up when he was backing up Gerard, either, which was a bonus. Gerard had gotten a little worried about him, lately. Not that that was much of a change from usual.) The music was generally pretty unpolished but interesting in its unpolished-ness. Frank’s band was called Pencey Prep. Pencey was fucking punk as shit.  
Frank’s really good at what he does, Gerard learned. He hoped that Frank thought the same of him.  
  
At Frank’s suggestion all three of them go out for coffee after the first show. It became a tradition.  
Mikey usually sat beside Gerard to sap his warmth, even though Gerard told him all the time to get his own goddamn coat like seriously. In response Mikey would insist smugly that he did, in fact, have his own coat. Gerard would hit him upside the arm.  
Frank left them to their “weird Way thing”. “It means I can spread out,” he said, and then demonstrated by kicking his ratty Chuck Taylors up onto the soft plastic bench beside him. His shoes had Misfits lyrics written on them in blue pen. Frank grinned at Gerard when he noticed him looking.  
They sip their respective drinks, Gerard stealing some of Mikey’s as warmth-replenishment, and they talk about all kinds of things. Mostly each other at first. They gradually move on to things each of them like, which turn out frequently to be things all of them like.  During the fifth meet-up Frank was horrified to lean that Gerard didn’t know the Bouncing Souls. He leaned across the table, offering his hands out like a benediction. “They’re _perfect,_ man. Oh my god. Let me help you. Let me show you the way.”  
“I wasn’t neglecting them on purpose!” Gerard protested, laughing. He let Frank grab his hand for a second before Frank sat back down. He ate more of his donut to squash down a rash of butterflies.  
Later, in the middle of a conversation about ‘Ghostbusters’, Mikey jostled Gerard’s elbow. He raised his eyebrows over his coffee mug when Gerard looked over, smiling a little in the significant Mikey way he had.  
Gerard jostled him back, pretending not to see.

  
*

  
The thirteenth time Frank came to Gerard he had a strange expression on his face. Not good; not bad; not cautious. "Hey G. I'd like to try and talk to my great-grandpa," he said without preamble. "See if he has anything to say about me."  
Gerard let him in and then followed behind Frank as he made his way through the rooms, which he knew by now.  It seemed like he was heading for the Ouija board. That made sense, if you wanted direct contact with a specific ghost.   
Gerard still wanted to ask _why_. Professionalism, however, indicated that he leave whatever the patron had in their conscience to the sprits and signs.

The two of them stepped into the backroom. Its smell of incense and furniture polish greeted them. Frank went right to the back corner, taking a seat on one of the thin metal stools around the solid wooden reading table. A Ouija board lay in the center of the table, darkly varnished underneath white painted letters, curlicues carved into the corners. Gerard had kept it polished and cared for just as Elena had taught him before she passed on.  
Gerard had told Frank about Elena. She’d come up in conversation during one of the coffee outings which had not been dates— _so that’s a kinda weird job, why do you do that?_ _Well, I like helping people, and my grandmother…_ Frank had understood. He was a patron, totally, but also a friend. Gerard could ask a friend what was going on.  
  
“So what is it?” Gerard tried, going over to draw the blinds. “Genealogy kick?”   
“Nah,” Frank said. He wiped his hand across his forehead and laughed. “No, it’s just some asshole.”  
“Oh.”  
“Yeah. He’s this old guy my parents hang out with because they have too—they all work together--- and he’s just being a fucking ass.” Frank paused. “Sorry, should I not swear—“  
Gerard laughed. “Swearing’s fine, dude. It’s not sacred ground or anything, by itself. It’s just our house upstairs. My grandma swore like a sailor.”  
He took the stool opposite Frank, re-adjusting the Ouija board’s angle on the table ever so slightly.  “She used to say that the spirits already knew those words.”  
“I guess they would.” Frank snickered, then shifted and re-centered himself on the stool. “I want to call my great-grandfather because this guy just kept saying all this shit about how it wouldn’t be acceptable in his day.”  
“… you being bi?” Gerard hedged. It was either that or, like, devil’s music, but Frank didn’t usually give one fuck about what people thought of Pencey’s appropriateness.  
“Yeah. It’d be nice to like, prove him wrong. From the horse’s mouth.” Frank smiled. His lip ring had long since healed nicely, but it still moved with his face.  
Gerard had forwarded weirder questions to the spirits. More personal ones, too. Still, “You know it doesn’t matter right? People who matter don’t say any of that shit.”  
“It doesn’t matter, he shouldn’t fucking talk like that,” Frank said sharply.  
“No, absolutely,” Gerard agreed. “But you don’t have to like, check facts with past generations. Everyone who counts is here now. Except for that dude.”  
Frank looked at him for a moment. “That’s pretty rich coming from a guy who deals with past generations for a living,” he said finally.  
Gerard shrugged. “It’s different in the house.”  
Frank watched him for a couple more moments. When he didn’t say anything more Frank just shook his head. A corner of tooth poked out from under his lip. “Okay,” he said quietly. He put both of his palms flat on the table, then flipped them over. In a normal voice he added, “Make with the contacting.”  
“This isn’t a séance, we don’t have to hold hands,” Gerard pointed out.  
Frank just wiggled his fingers in response.    
Gerard huffed a little, but pulled the pointer over anyway. It was the same wood as the board itself, sanded into a circle with a window in the middle to outline the words. The view had been cut through a natural knot in the tree. Elena had said these kinds of boards were perfect, because it showed willingness in the wood.   
Gerard loved this board. He loved this room: the heavy velvet drapes blanketing the window, the salt-stone lamps on top of the high bookshelves, the bells hung in every corner. Welcoming. Safe. He was pretty sure Frank felt the same way about it. Gerard let his fingers rest lightly just on the outer edge of the pointer, then closed his eyes.  
Frank did the same on his side of the table.  
  
Gerard could feel cold radiating from Frank’s hands. The air outside was tilting towards the spring now, bringing tentative warmth with it, but not enough. The human needed gloves, but he never wore them. Gerard worried. He didn’t want Frank to get pneumonia again.  
_Get a hold of yourself,_ he thought sternly _._ No spirit would call to him if he focused on physical details like this.   
Fuck. But he couldn’t focus on anything else.  
_Redirect, then._  
Gerard kept his eyes closed and pictured the cold as vapour, originating not from Frank himself but from an emptiness on the other side of the board. The vapour would be white at first, then black as it faded into the space beyond. Slowly, slowly. Gerard focused on his breathing and on the well-chosen, smooth wood beneath his fingers. He could feel the time it took the tree to grow in the pointer's warps and ripples. The tree’s lifespan stretched beyond him, laying out a path he could follow.  
Gerard felt his mind relax, in a way that was separate from the rest of him. He felt let-go, free, but also whole; part of this house, this room, as much of the wood of the table and the floor; the protective wards chipped into the concrete of the basement. Like this he would feel something move on the other side of the room.   
The back of his mind opened up. A drape lifted away. Revealing the dark behind his own thoughts and fears. The same space he felt the pull and breath of the moon.   
The whispers that manifested there grew more distinct. Not threateningly; only looking for a way to speak. Gerard could handle them. Elena had taught him well, and he’d learned more since she’d been gone. _You are all welcome here,_ Gerard thought without his own voice _. But I’m looking for one of you…_

Something changed.  
Gerard’s eyes flew open, startled and drowsy all at once. It took him a second before he realized that he was staring down at his hands. They were cold.   
Frank’s hands were on top of them, pressing his palms to Gerard’s fingers.   
Gerard looked up, drawing his eyebrows together.  
“I said I’ve changed my mind,” Frank said. The strange expression as he’d had on the doorstep was back, and he was looking at Gerard very intently. He kept his hands where they were.  
“Oh,” Gerard said. He blinked away a couple of cobwebs and then tried to sit up straight again. The voices murmured and drew together in his head; spirits were used to waiting, but not having an invitation revoked so suddenly. He tried to focus on Frank. “Uh. I’m sorry, was there something else I could do--?”  
“Probably,” Frank said. Then he stood up, leaning over the table.  
Gerard had about another second and a half to wonder, in his baffled threshold state, what the hell the other man was doing before Frank shoved his cold little face against Gerard’s.  
  
Gerard flinched backwards instinctively, then immediately surged forward with his arms held out. It’s almost too late; Frank overbalanced with a squawk and flopped frontwards over the table, only avoiding the edge by the barest of margins and Gerard’s hurried grab for his arm. Frank’s flailing arm missed the Ouija boars and pointer, but his wallet and cellphone fell out of his pockets with a clatter.  
In Gerard’s haste he toppled over his stool, which clanged loudly as it hit the floor. His and Frank’s surprised swearing mingles together in the air.  
The wind charms hanging from one of the corners shook, a clatter of wood ringing hoarsely and bright. It sounded unmistakably like laughter.  
“—holy _shit,_ ” Frank finished his tirade, staring over at the charms with wide eyes.  
The last vestiges of trance leaves Gerard just in time for the embarrassment to rush in. He laughed helplessly, covering his face with his right hand to hide his blush. “That was Elena,” he said through his fingers. Behind him one of the larger chime pieces hit the wall again with a single loud _thonk_. He waved it off with a flap of his opposite hand.  
Frank nodded, then swallowed heavily. He slid awkwardly off of the edge of the table onto his feet. He spent a second dusting off his jeans and straightening his jacket before looking up again. “Uh. Pleased to meet you,” he offered to the chimes.  
He turned to Gerard and added in an undertone, “I guess we shouldn’t do that in here either, huh?”  
Gerard shrugged, putting down his hand. At least Frank wasn’t freaking out. “It depends how you feel about peeping ghosts. But like it’s not not _allowed,_ Mikey used to bring his dates here all the time— wait, don’t tell him I told you that.”  
The chimes chortle at the same time as Frank grinned. “I am absolutely going to tell him you told me that,” he said. Then, with only slight hesitation, he stepped up into Gerard’s personal space again and put his (chilly) hands on either side of Gerard’s face. “Please don’t flinch this time.”  
Gerard leaned forward instead.  
  
It’s a nice kiss. Gerard would totally be happy with this kiss, but he was also definitely smelling the weird hairspray that his grandmother used to favour pretty strongly, and the drapes were rustling in a ‘move along’ kind of way.  “We should go,” he said when they break to breathe. “Probably. I mean.” He pressed his forehead to Frank’s just because he could. It was hard to see him from this distance but Gerard could manage. “You, uh. You could show me _your_ house?”  
Frank’s nose wrinkled like a rabbit's. It was, objectively, one of the cutest expressions Gerard had ever seen. “Okay.”  
  
  
_~ * ~_


End file.
